Broken
by nothing-rhymes-with-ianto
Summary: After coming back to Pete's world, Rose has time to think about her past with the Doctor, and why something felt wrong. And she realizes the impact she has on people and how she's hurt someone she loves.


It was only after she'd gotten back to Pete's World with the human version of the Doctor and had time to just sit and think, that she realized it. That she realized the things that she and her Doctor did, the power they both had over others, power they hadn't truly been aware of.

She was working for Torchwood now. Good Torchwood. A reformed Torchwood London without Cybermen or Lumic or Yvonne or anyone else. A Torchwood run by Pete and others who understood what was to be done. That protecting people was different from finding power from other planets.

When she'd first got back, she'd spent weeks sitting in the house, sitting at the computer at work, just thinking. Going back over every single moment with the Doctor, from start to finish, every single moment, every thought or glance or word. Because she knew hindsight was 20/20, and for the longest time she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that someone she knew was wrong. Even on board the TARDIS, coming home, she'd felt it, and she'd known it to be one of the Doctor's own.

It came to her as she thought back on that first year, remembered meeting her joyful, corny Captain. She remembered his confusion, his naïve cruelty, his sorrow. She remembered how he seemed to brighten and open and heal while he was with them, how he seemed to relax. He thought they could do no wrong, that they could save him from himself, could love him enough to fix him. She remembered how he'd calmed a bit and his smiles were more genuine. How he seemed to come home when he was with them. He seemed to melt. He'd fallen in love with both of them, she knew. She thought back to the last time. No longer did she see him feel that way.

That was the wrongness she'd felt. That was it.

She knew, now, what had happened to her back on the GameStation when the Doctor had changed. She knew that she had taken the Time Vortex into her head, that she'd destroyed the Daleks, and seen Jack, dead, and taken pity on him because of her love and his newfound happiness. And she knew that the Doctor had saved her, saved her and run despite knowing, feeling, sensing it and realizing the wrongness of it all. She knew he'd felt Jack's itching wrongness and run, knew he'd sensed the despair as the man watched his newest home disappear without a thought for him, knew he'd ignored it all in favour of getting away from the wrong and of protecting her.

She and the Doctor had broken Jack.

They'd broken him, torn him down, split him open and never sewn him up again and they hadn't even known it. The Doctor never knew it, not until it was too late and Jack had been hurt and killed so many times both physically and mentally that it was impossible to make amends.

They had built up his love and trust, they'd told him they loved and trusted him. They'd promised acceptance and adoration and affirmation. They'd promised him absolution and home. They'd ripped it all away from him, then. They'd taken their promises, their love, their forgiveness and trust and loyalty, and tossed it apathetically in the bin as they walked away. They'd left him behind. Abandoned. They had left him squirming and agonized on the cold ground, aching and weary. They had left him alone for eternity, yearning for touch and never being granted. They'd left him with the ability to love but a towering, overpowering, looming reason not to. They had left him flayed and panting, wishing to start over. They'd torn him limb from limb with the ache of wait and the inability to settle and the constant, ticking, painful anticipation, the result of which was massively disappointing and traumatizing and fucked up beyond all reason. They had stuck a knife in his heart with the last grind of an engine and twisted sharply it each time the Doctor's voice tripped down the line or an alien came through the Rift or a blue box was sighted in London. They'd shoved the barb in his gut, in his heart, and left him bleeding. They'd killed him. Again and again. And still Jack returned, leaping up at the Doctor's beck and call, hoping that things might somehow go back to the way they'd once been.

Because they'd broken him.

And so he thought they'd be the ones to fix him.

He was wrong.


End file.
